AP BiologyCourse Planning and Pacing Guide 1

Teresa MasseyElizabeth Andrews High SchoolStone Mountain, Georgia

2012 The College Board. College Board, Advanced Placement Program, AP, SAT and the acorn logo are registered trademarks of the College Board. All other products and services may be trademarks of their respective owners. Visit the College Board on the Web: www.collegeboard.org. Except where otherwise noted, this work is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license (CC-BY): http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/.

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AP Biology Course Planning and Pacing Guide 1 2012 The College Board.

About the College Board

The College Board is a mission-driven not-for-profit organization that connects students to college success and opportunity. Founded in 1900, the College Board was created to expand access to higher education. Today, the membership association is made up of more than 5,900 of the worlds leading educational institutions and is dedicated to promoting excellence and equity in education. Each year, the College Board helps more than seven million students prepare for a successful transition to college through programs and services in college readiness and college success including the SAT and the Advanced Placement Program. The organization also serves the education community through research and advocacy on behalf of students, educators and schools.

For further information, visit www.collegeboard.org.

AP Equity and Access Policy

The College Board strongly encourages educators to make equitable access a guiding principle for their AP programs by giving all willing and academically prepared students the opportunity to participate in AP. We encourage the elimination of barriers that restrict access to AP for students from ethnic, racial, and socioeconomic groups that have been traditionally underserved. Schools should make every effort to ensure their AP classes reflect the diversity of their student population. The College Board also believes that all students should have access to academically challenging course work before they enroll in AP classes, which can prepare them for AP success. It is only through a commitment to equitable preparation and access that true equity and excellence can be achieved.

Welcome to the AP Biology Course Planning and Pacing Guides

This guide is one of four Course Planning and Pacing Guides designed for AP Biology teachers. Each provides an example of how to design instruction for the AP course based on the authors teaching context (e.g., demographics, schedule, school type, setting).

The Course Planning and Pacing Guides highlight how the components of the AP Biology Curriculum Framework the learning objectives, course themes, conceptual understandings, and science practices are addressed in the course. Each guide also provides valuable suggestions for teaching the course, including the selection of resources, instructional activities, laboratory investigations, and assessments. The authors have offered insight into the why and how behind their instructional choices displayed in boxes on the right side of the page of the individual unit plans to aid in course planning for AP Biology teachers. Additionally, each author explicitly explains how he or she manages course breadth and increases depth for each unit of instruction.

The primary purpose of these comprehensive guides is to model approaches for planning and pacing curriculum throughout the school year. However, they can also help with syllabus development when used in conjunction with the resources created to support the AP Course Audit: the Syllabus Development Guide and the four Annotated Sample Syllabi. These resources include samples of evidence and illustrate a variety of strategies for meeting curricular requirements.

AP Biology Course Planning and Pacing Guide 1 2012 The College Board.

Contents

Instructional Setting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Overview of the Course . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Big Ideas and Science Practices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Managing Breadth and Increasing Depth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Course Planning and Pacing by Unit

Unit 1: Evolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Unit 2: Cellular Processes: Energy and Communication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Unit 3: Genetics and Information Transfer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Unit 4: Interactions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Resources. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

1AP Biology Course Planning and Pacing Guide 1 2012 The College Board.

Instructional Setting

Elizabeth Andrews High SchoolStone Mountain, Georgia

School Elizabeth Andrews is a nontraditional public high school for students who wish to accelerate the completion of their remaining graduation requirements; this includes:

students wishing to enter college or join the workforce early; students who need to make up courses for graduation; and students who work part time or full time.

Elizabeth Andrewss enrollment is only available to students 16 years of age and older who have completed six units of high school course credit, including three credits from core content areas such as English, math, science, social studies, and world language.

Student population 604 students in grades 912 Suburban/urban community school setting Race/ethnicity:

87 percent African American

9 percent Hispanic

2 percent Asian American

1 percent Caucasian

1 percent multiracial

77 percent of the students receive free or reduced-price lunches 48 percent of Elizabeth Andrewss students go on to enroll in a two- or

four-year college

2AP Biology Course Planning and Pacing Guide 1 2012 The College Board.

Instructional Setting (continued)

Instructional time The school year lasts 180 days and generally starts early in August and ends before Memorial Day. The school operates on a block schedule, with a new semester beginning approximately every nine weeks. The AP Biology course starts in October (the beginning of the second semester) and ends in March (the third semester), for approximately 90 days of core instruction in 100-minute class periods. Students can elect to stay in the course an additional semester (through May). The additional semester provides reteaching, review, and exam preparation.

Student preparation AP Biology is offered either as a fourth-year science course or to ninth-grade students who are motivated to accept the challenge of a college-level course. Most students in the AP Biology course have taken a college-preparatory biology course as well as physical science and/or chemistry.

Textbooks and lab manuals

Campbell, Neil A., and Jane B. Reece. Biology. 8th ed. San Francisco: Pearson Benjamin Cummings, 2008.

AP Biology Investigative Labs: An Inquiry-Based Approach. New York: The College Board, 2012.

AP Biology Lab Manual. New York: The College Board, 2001.

3AP Biology Course Planning and Pacing Guide 1 2012 The College Board.

Overview of the Course

The AP Biology course is designed to be the equivalent of a college-level introductory biology course. The intent of the course is to expose students to higher-level biological principles, concepts, and skills and allow them the opportunity to apply their knowledge to real-life applications. Rather than learning from a micro level outward, students learn from a macro level inward. Students are also expected to learn not by memorization of facts, but through content and concept application via the AP Biology science practices.

Core concepts called enduring understandings and their application via the science practices are the basis of the AP Biology curriculum. These concepts are organized around biological principles called big ideas that permeate the entire course and focus on the following topics:

evolution biological systems using energy to maintain homeostasis for survival passing heritable information to provide continuity of life the interaction of biological systems with biotic and abiotic factors

In the revised AP Biology course, the teacher serves as the facilitator while the students develop as independent thinkers and learners, especially through laboratory investigations. Many concepts that are considered prerequisite knowledge for the course can be reviewed as home study through the use of rich resources such as assigned websites, WebQuests, and journal articles. In class, students are given opportunities to learn and apply their knowledge through the process of inquiry rather than learning from lectures and/or prescribed lab protocols. A sense of wonder and use of original thought are fostered as students are encouraged to extend their learning via scaffolded conceptual understandings and open inquiry.

In the new AP Biology Investigative Labs: An Inquiry-Based Approach (2012), 13 inquiry-based and student-directed lab investigations provide opportunities for teachers to engage students in the scientific process. Each lab includes a supplemental list of resources that provides a toolbox of activities for the teacher to build and extend lessons. There are no required labs; thus, teachers can use and conduct labs